Well, don’t know what to say now… we are divided folks! 50 businesspeople
who think my questions are inane, 50 who appear to have been wondering the
same things as me…
Please know that in 2yrs. of school and 1.5 yrs. of residency, I have come
to love what I do. So much so that I want to make an effort to make this a
career. It is generally observed that we are not going to continue to enjoy
the reimbursements of the past, and those who wish to continue are going to
have to come up with ways to make it work. I do not have the luxury of being
at the latter end of my practice, and in the “get it while I can mentality”,
I have to find a way to make a living for the next 40yrs, and I do not feel
good about how it is done right now. I would like to see changes in the way
we are reimbursed, and frankly I would like to see us having no financial
interest in the componentry we so often recommend. It is time to help the
folks we are already “helping”!!! All of my questions are intended to
assist in this goal being reached… so back to it…
What if the patients came to us with an armload of parts they already had
purchased, and our job was to make the socket and apply those parts? Could
we survive??? The cost of handling those parts would then fall on the
manufacturers (who seem to be managing OK), freeing us up to do what we do
best, and preventing us from “$$$caring too much$$$” about what foot is
being used!
Here’s another take, (not that I know how to make it happen…) if we can
reduce the cost of the $3500 foot (from my earlier example) to $1750, then
two people can have it where only one could before, and the manufacturer
will sell twice as many, and their costs will decrease, and their $1500 that
they used to charge will become $1000, and so on and so on until persons
with recent amputations won’t fall off their chairs when we say how much
their prostheses will cost!!! Best of all, since our costs would be reduced,
we could “net” a similar amount of salary for our trouble!
Maybe thoughts like those above are useless, but who knows until they are
explored?!?
I am young, and I care, and I will find a way to make my business work one
day without exploiting a captive audience. Come on in, the water is fine…
Justin Foster
Prosthetic Resident
CIRS – Palo Alto
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